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TV news and tips for Tuesday

Selleck’s an Easy Sell: It looks like Tom Selleck’s still got it. His new show Blue Bloods, in which he stars as the patriarch of a police family, attracted 12.8 million viewers in the U.S. and 2.1 million viewers in Canada when it debuted Friday. It airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on CTV and CBS, and the premiere can be seen at www.ctv.ca.

Homegrown Picking: Canwest Broadcasting has begun production on a new original series based on the popular U.S. show American Pickers. Canadian Pickers will feature Sheldon Smithens and Scott Cozens searching Canadian back roads, basements, sheds and barns for forgotten treasures, and will premiere in spring 2011 on History Television.

Never Mind Elmo:The Simpsons is going where Sesame Street feared to tread. Katy Perry will appear as herself, and as the girlfriend of bartender Moe, in a live-action segment featuring puppet versions of the show’s characters, Entertainment Weekly says. Last week, Sesame Street producers rejected a music video of Perry with Elmo because Perry’s low-cut dress drew complaints when the video premiered on YouTube. Perry has also completed shooting a Simpsons Christmas-theme scheduled to air Dec. 5.

Whither Spartacus? Producers are still deciding whether to scrap or recast the series Spartacus: Blood and Sand now that lead Andy Whitfield’s cancer has returned. Executive producer Steven S. DeKnight told EW.com’s Michael Ausiello that he’ll consult Whitfield about the options. The actor had to leave the show’s second season to resume “aggressive treatment” for Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

A Favourite Thing: The entire cast of the 1965 movie The Sound of Music, including Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, is scheduled to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Oct. 29. The show will also include a performance by singing group The von Trapp Children, which features members of the family the movie was about.

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X Factor Casting: Piers Morgan has confirmed to U.K. newspaper News of the World that Nicole Scherzinger and Cheryl Cole will be judges on America’s X Factor next year. Former Pussycat Doll Scherzinger, who won Dancing With the Stars last season, and singer and U.K. X Factor judge Cole will bookend Simon Cowell, who left American Idol to bring X Factor to the colonies.

Lauren’s Coming Back: Lauren Conrad isn’t done with reality TV. Conrad, former star of The Hills and, before that, Laguna Beach, will star in a documentary program about launching her latest fashion line, MTV says.

Casting News: Jorge Garcia (Lost) will appear in a November episode of How I Met Your Mother as an old college friend of Ted’s, Digital Spy reports. Summer Glau (The Sarah Connor Chronicles) will guest-star as an undercover agent on Chuck, EW.com says. Darren Everett Criss (Eastwick) will play a gay student from a rival glee club on Glee and a potential love interest for Kurt (Chris Colfer), says E! Online.

NBC Fills Job: Steve Burke, the No. 2 executive at Comcast Corp., will assume Jeff Zucker’s position as chief executive of NBC Universal, which is merging with Comcast. Zucker announced his departure Friday.

Music With Bite: The original soundtrack for The Vampire Diaries will be released Oct. 12. The show about two vampire brothers obsessed with the same girl airs on The CW and A in Canada Thursdays at 8 p.m.

TONIGHT ON TV

•The Tenth Inning is the sequel to the hit 1994 series Baseball. Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, this new instalment looks at how baseball rebounded from the strike and the drug scandal that followed, and ends Wednesday night (PBS at 8).

•The Incredibles meets The Greatest American Hero in the debut of No Ordinary Family, starring Michael Chiklis (The Shield) and Julie Benz (Dexter) as parents of a family that suddenly develops superhero powers (CTV, ABC at 8).

• It’s the highly anticipated Britney Spears episode on Glee, with the pop singer putting in an appearance (Global, Fox at 8).

• On the season premiere of The Good Wife, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) is forced to choose between her husband and her boss (Global, CBS at 10).

LATE NIGHT

Strombo at 11:05: Billy Connolly

Letterman at 11:35: Jon Stewart, N.E.R.D.

Leno at 11:35: Patrick Dempsey, Mindy Kaling, Train

Stewart at 12:05: Arianna Huffington

Kimmel at 12:06: Dane Cook, Dancing With the Stars castoff, Maroon 5

Colbert at 12:35: Ross Douthat

Ferguson at 12:37: Steven Wright, Sloane Crosley, Blake Shelton

Fallon at 12:37: Justin Timberlake, Belle & Sebastian

Daly at 1:35: Elisabeth Moss, Kim-Marie Penn, Menomena

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